Herakaeli Cluster
The Herakaeli Cluster is a dense collection of lesser worlds and systems which makes up the coreward region of the Ixaniad Sector. This Sub-Sector is controlled broadly by the fiefdoms of Forge Hephaestia. Peopled by dense hives and civilized world and filled with rich mining worlds, the cluster serves the mechanical overlords well. Uncomfortably close to the Eye of Terror, this sub-sector has seen near constant conflict for millennia as the powers of chaos wane and wax strong again. Since the surge of warp storms as the Lightless Century began, several planets have vanished from astrographic cartography, whole worlds have fallen to chaos, and others to rebellion. In the grim years since, the sub-sector has felt the iron grip of the Mechanicum bear down upon them with crushing force, both to stabilize flagging Imperial authority and gain valuable resources becoming ever more scare in the Imperium Nihilus. Noted Worlds The planets of the Herakaeli Cluster broadly fall under the influence of the Mechanicus, in the past Imperial authorities retained their overall influence through economic prowess, trade deals, and occasionally displays of military force. With the chaos of the Imperium Nihilus taking its toll, the Machine Cult has risen to ascendancy as the dominating guiding power. The core worlds considered under the direct rule of Forge Hephaestia are watched over and protected by the Vigilance Domains. Imperial Worlds g Mechanicus Worlds * Enetheos: A former civilized world within the Ansirian system and neighbor to the civilized worlds of Duraneer and Juraneel. Formerly a producer of rare ores and a manufacture of imperial vehicles, commercial goods, and specialty parts for the Forges. In the middle of the lightless century, the system governor and the ruling oligarchy declared their independence from the oaths to the Forge, taking the technology given unto them and succeeding from the Imperium. Being unable to reach the world and unknowing of the betrayal, the world remained as such for decades. When the world finally was uncovered as warp travel became possible once more the Forge came down hard on the world and system. Enetheos was reduced to a factory world and converted to an outpost of the mechanicum, the civilization erased and much of the population reduced to servitors and tech-thralls. Juraneel was mined out and subject to exterminatus and Duraneer was spared punishment as it retained loyalty to the mechanicum and to the Imperium. * Gaerethra: A hive world within the Malaera system, holding a modest population of twenty-five billion, the hive serves as a average output industrial base. At inception, the world was fully apart from the Mechanicus hierarchy, serving to produce a wide variety of sub-mechanicus grade products as well as huge quantities of the raw materials to craft alloys such as durasteel and plasteel. Over time, Mechanicus presence increased and the range of material production increased dramatically, and placing the planetary governor in a position to bargain fruitfully with the sector nobility in trade. In a somewhat rare case, this wealth trickled down to a not insignificant percent of the common population, and the world became renowned for the great Machine Temples, where the laity could come to be educated in the ways of common machines and rites of maintenance, as well as be inculcated into a lesser form of the Machine Cult Dogma. In M40, the planetary governor, a man named Chisseke, ascended to power and began to seize assets of the common folk, concentrating power into the nobility and diminishing the teachings of the Mechanicus, seeing them as opposed to true spiritual dogma. Soon into his term, he would suffer a fatal uprising as the educated populace overthrew the government. When the pacification fleets arrived, they found a world at peace in the process of restarting its factories and a Magos-Intendant in place of the planetary governor. The planet would come under attack from the Dark Mechanicus in 115.M42 before being rescued by the fleets of Forge Hephaestia, who reaffirmed their loyalties to the forge. * Cadmantium: A mining world spinward of the Ixaniad sector. Long a source of average grade mineral materials, limited supplies of rare elements, and manpower, this world has served the machine cult exclusivly since the time of the heresy. Origionally settled during the great crusade's period of outward expansion and settlement, the planet was swiftly colonized by Imperial logistics. Cadmantium swiftly entered into a pact with the local forge, trading their mineral wealth in exchange for technological and geoforming support. Forge Hephaestia would make good on their Imperial pacts and their own resources would feed it. During the leadup to the Heresy, the relationship between the colony and the Forge grew deeper, until Hephaestia began recruiting citizens into the priesthood. Tragically the seeds of rebellion would be sown by forces loyal to the warmaster, and discontent groups detested that their best and brightest were being pulled away from their world and in time, moral panic spread, and an uprising was triggered. The people surged into the Mechanicum districts, killing what priests they could get and taking what technology they could in an attempt to secure their own futures. In the wake of their own fight against the traitors, Hephaestia responded violently to this, and dispatched it's Titan Legion to raze the colonies to the ground. The survivors would be reorganized according to cult doctrine in the wake of the heresy, and a new civilization was built up after the heresy, one not so inclined to rebel ever again. * New Constantine: A survivor of the Dark Age of Technology, this world endured the perils of Old Night and survived to be contacted by Forge Hephaestia. Even more incredibly so, when negeotiations turned sour, they were able to fight the Machine Cult armies to a standstill, and in time negeotiations would resume. Each side possessed technologies the other sorely desired, and for a great while, the two worlds were amicable, and eventually the world was brought into full compliance with the Imperium. Conservative by nature, this surviving world had always held out, and as the Great Crusade went on, its tithed armies would cycling back home would return to the world speaking of the God-Emperor, in direct contravention to the Imperial Truth, and cults to the Emperor began to spring up. Tragically, others returned with other influences to other powers. The heresy broke the local Forge's focus on the world, and without Imperial or Mechanicum involvment on the planet, competing religious factions rose up against each other and civil war ensued, leading to terrible destruction of the world and an eventual victory for the traitor armies. When the Mechanicum returned to the world in 016.M31, they found a hostile population who once again opposed them. With absolutely no tolerance, the might of the Titan Legion was deployed alongside a full invasion, the ensuing war destroying much of what was left, and the use of widespread atomic weapons left much of the surface world dead and polluted. The world remains dead, its technology scoured, and mining all its good for. New mines created in the wreck and ruin periodically dig up old Dark Age vaults, for better or for worse, and the world is still plumbed to this day.